After they had passed, the orchard was still again, but the stillness had a different quality from that which had gone before. The leaves did not rustle, no birds chirped, there were no faint betrayals of the presence of chipmunks or squirrels. Only if one listened very closely was the dry noise of insects perceptible. But I heard the guns now. Clearly, and louder. And more continuously—much more continuously. It was not yet the roar of battle, but death was unmistakable in its low rumble.
Then the Confederates came. Cautiously, but not so cautiously that one could fail to recognize they represented a victorious, invading army. Shabby they certainly were, as they pushed into the orchard, but alert and confident. Only a minority had uniforms which resembled those prescribed by regulation and these were torn, stained and scuffed. Many of the others wore the semi-official butternut—crudely dyed homespun, streaked and muddy brown. Some had ordinary clothes with military hats and buttons; a few were dressed in federal blue pants with gray or butternut jackets.
Nor were their weapons uniform. There were long rifles, short carbines, muskets of varying age, and I noticed one bearded soldier with a ponderous shotgun. But whatever their dress or arms, their bearing was the bearing of conquerors. If I alone on the field that day knew for sure the outcome of the battle, these Confederate soldiers were close behind in sensing the future.
The straggling Northerners had passed me by with the clouded perception of the retreating. These Southrons, however, were steadfastly attentive to every sight and sound. Too late I realized the difficulty of remaining unnoticed by such sharp, experienced eyes. Even as I berated myself for my stupidity, a great, whiskery fellow in what must once have been a stylish bottle-green coat pointed his gun at me.
“Yank here boys!” Then to me, “What you doing here, fella?”
Three or four came up and surrounded me curiously. “Funniest lookin’ damyank I ever did see. Looks like he just fell out of a bathtub.”
Since I had walked all night on dusty roads I could only think their standards of cleanliness were not high. And, indeed, this was confirmed by the smell coming from them: the stink of sweat, of clothes long slept in, of unwashed feet and stale tobacco.
“I’m a noncombatant,” I said foolishly.
“Whazzat?” asked the beard. “Some kind of Baptist?”
“Let’s see your boots, Yank. Mine’s sure wore out.”
What terrified me now was not the thought of my boots being stolen, or of being treated as a prisoner, or even the remote chance I might be shot as a spy. A greater, more indefinite catastrophe was threatened by my exposure. These men were the advance company of a regiment due to sweep through the orchard and the wheatfield, explore that bit of wild ground known as the Devil’s Den and climb up Little Round Top closely followed by an entire Confederate brigade. This was the brigade which held the Round Tops for several hours until artillery was brought up—artillery which dominated the entire field and gave the South its victory at Gettysburg.
There was no allowance for a pause, no matter how trifling, in the peach orchard in any of the accounts I had ever read or heard of. The hazard Barbara had warned so insistently against had happened. I had been discovered, and the mere discovery had altered the course of history.
I tried to shrug it off. The delay of a few minutes could hardly make a significant difference. All historians agreed the capture of the Round Tops was an inevitability; the Confederates would have been foolish to overlook them—in fact, it was hardly possible they could, prominent as they were, both on maps and in physical reality—and they had occupied them hours before the Federals made a belated attempt to take them. I had been unbelievably stupid to expose myself, but I had created no repercussions likely to spread beyond the next few minutes.
“Said let’s see them boots. Ain’t got all day to wait.”
A tall officer with a pointed imperial and a sandy, faintly reddish mustache whose curling ends shone waxily came up, revolver in hand. “What’s going on here?”
“Just a Yank, Cap’n. Making a little change of footgear.” The tone was surly, almost insolent.
The galloons on the officer’s sleeve told me the title was not honorary. “I’m a civilian, Captain,” I protested. “I realize I have no business here.”
The captain looked at me coldly, with an expression of disdainful contempt. “Local man?” he asked.
“Not exactly. I’m from York.”
“Too bad. Thought you could tell me about the Yanks up ahead. Jenks, leave the civilian gentleman in full possession of his boots.” There was rage behind that sneer, a hateful anger apparently directed at me for being a civilian, at his men for their obvious lack of respect, at the battle, the world. I suddenly realized his face was intimately familiar. Irritatingly, because I could connect it with no name, place or circumstance.
“How long have you been in this orchard, Mister Civilian-From-York?”
The effort to identify him nagged me, working in the depths of my mind, obtruding even into that top layer which was concerned with what was going on.
What was going on? Too bad. Thought you could tell me about the Yanks up ahead. How long have you been in this orchard?
Yanks up ahead? There weren’t any.
“I said, ‘How long you been in this orchard?’”
Probably an officer later promoted to rank prominent enough to have his picture in one of the minor narratives. Yet I was certain his face was no likeness I’d seen once in a steel engraving and dismissed. These were features often encountered….
“Sure like to have them boots. If we ain’t fightin’ for Yankee boots, what the hell we fightin’ for?”
What could I say? That I’d been in the orchard for half an hour? The next question was bound to be, Had I seen Federal troops? Whichever way I answered I would be betraying my role of spectator.
“Hay Cap’n—this fella knows something. Lookit the silly grin!”
Was I smiling? In what? Terror? Perplexity? In the mere effort of keeping silent, so as to be involved no further?
“Tell yah—he’s laughin’ cuz he knows somethin’!”
Let them hang me, let them strip me of my boots; from here on I was dumb as dear Catty had been once.
“Out with it, man—you’re in a tight spot. Are there Yanks up ahead?”
The confusion in my mind approached chaos. If I knew the captain’s eventual rank I could place him. Colonel Soandso. Brigadier-General Blank. What had happened? Why had I let myself be discovered? Why had I spoken at all and made silence so hard now?
“Yanks up ahead—they’s Yanks up ahead!”
“Quiet you! I asked him—he didn’t say there were Yanks ahead.”
“Hay! Damyanks up above. Goin’ to mow us down!”
“Fella says the bluebellies are layin fur us!”
Had the lie been in my mind, to be telepathically plucked by the excited soldier? Was even silence no refuge from participation?
“Man here spotted the whole Fed artillery up above, trained on us!”
“Pull back, boys! Pull back!”
I’d read often enough of the epidemic quality of a perfectly unreasonable notion. A misunderstood word, a baseless rumor, an impossible report, was often enough to set a group of armed men—squad or army—into senseless mob action. Sometimes the infection made for feats of heroism, sometimes for panic. This was certainly less than panic, but my nervous, meaningless smile conveyed a message I had never sent.